James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
Before Christmas, the Tories were acutely aware of the need to start the New Year strongly. This morning’s polls suggest that they have done so. The Tories are now back above 40 percent with ComRes and on course for an overall majority with the pollster that has returned the worst Tory scores in recent months.
As Pete noted earlier we can expect the government to announce a new string of measures to try and get the banking system moving again next week. The key political question is whether action from the Prime Minister revives his poll rating or whether the public conclude that this means that the government’s first effort
James Forsyth says that Barack Obama will need all his remarkable talents to confront an extraordinary set of challenges — not only the economy, but global security Short of wearing a stove-pipe hat, Obama could not make his desire to be compared to Abraham Lincoln any more obvious. He plans to travel to his inauguration
There has been a conspicuous silence from the Tories about David Miliband’s deeply mistaken piece in The Guardian yesterday. While there are not many votes in foreign policy for an opposition, it is vital that a party that wants to be a success in government uses its time out of office to work out its
Even if Caroline Spelman is completely exonerated by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner she’ll still be moved from her post as party chairman. The party needs a better media communicator in the job in the run-up to an election. If the reshuffle rumours are to be believed, Jeremy Hunt is in pole position to replace her.
According to the school league tables published today no pupils at Eton are “achieving 5 A*-C GCSEs including English and maths”. How can that be? Well, Eton like various other top private school have abandoned GCSEs in certain subjects and instead have their pupils take international GCSEs which don’t count in the league tables. IGCSEs, though,
Ben Smith spots a passage in Michael Wolff’s Murdoch biography which might explain why Murdoch’s New York Post is so enthusiastically backing Caroline Kennedy: “As Rupert Murdoch begins to plot to get the Wall Street Journal, he’s also worried about getting Grace into private school in New York. He wants her to go to Brearley,
One of the great mysteries of British politics is why David Miliband has a reputation for being a deep-thinker. Far from being a bold new agenda for British foreign policy, his piece in today’s Guardian, which Pete reviewed earlier, is, as Melanie argues, embarrassingly shallow. First, it is hardly ground-breaking to observe that ‘war on
“If you compare him with an average Russian bureaucrat you’re laughing.” A hilarious–—perhaps unintentionally so—assessment of Gordon Brown from Alexander Lebdev, who is reportedly the new owner of the Evening Standard.
Having let the Ken Clarke hare run, the Tory leadership are faced by what happens to him dominating reshuffle coverage. If after this Cameron doesn’t bring him back there’ll be a lot of headlines about Cameron bowing to pressure from the right. But if Clarke does return, then the press—egged on by Mandelson—will start speculating
Over Christmas, William Hague’s standing in the party and David Cameron’s authority took a beating from reports that the shadow foreign secretary was prepared to resign rather than give up his outside interests. Today’s joint Cameron-Hague interview in The Sun can be seen as an attempt to move on from that. In an attempt to minimise
Obama might be right that there is no alternative to the US running “trillion-dollar deficits”. But the $1.7 trillion deficit, its likely size in 2009, is truly alarming. Consider these comparisons that Kevin Hassett provides: “The whole world’s military spending in 2006 totalled a little less than $1.2 trillion. So next year’s U.S. deficit could
Peter Oborne points out a quite remarkable fact in his column today: “not a single member of the Cabinet has ever occupied a wealth-creating job.”
In a classy gesture, Barack Obama is holding an inaugural eve dinner to honour John McCain. (There are other dinners that night for Colin Powell and Joe Biden). But it is also smart politics, as it costs Obama little and gains him much. McCain is a genuine American hero and the evening will be seen,
There’s some tough competition but Pakistan is probably the scariest foreign policy problem the world faces. It is where the issues of weak states, Islamic extremism, nuclear weapons and terrorism all come together. Considering Britain’s ties to the place it is a problem that should cause particular concern here. If you doubt how big a
Labour is right to want to do more to bring working class children into the professions. It is undeniable that middle-class children derive a considerable advantage from the social capital of their parents and the fact that their families can support them in low-paying or unpaid internships. Schemes that can offer those from deprived backgrounds
The New York Times reports this morning that President Bush rejected an Israeli request for bunker-busting bombs, refuelling capacity and over-flight rights that would have allowed it to hit Iran’s nuclear facilities. It is unclear whether the Israelis were actually planning a strike or whether they merely wanted to emphasise to the Americans that they
There is a deep divide in Republican circles about how to think about the 2008 election result. Some argue that the results show just how close to becoming a rump party of the Deep South the GOP is. Others say that considering the economic crisis, the drag on the ticket that was the Bush presidency,
Iain Dale points us towards Gaby Hinsliff’s scoop in The Observer that Derek Draper’s Labour List website will launch next week. Comparisons are being made to Conservative Home but looking at the contributors list which includes Peter Mandelson, Charlie Whelan, Philip Gould and Douglas Alexander it seems more like the Conservative Party’s Blue Blog. It
The unemployment numbers are expected to be grim by the end of this year. But Bagehot notes in this column this week that the Brown circle believes that rising unemployment might not be as big a political deal as it has been in past recessions: “But, in private, some of his associates argue that redundancies